Internationally acclaimed Australian architect Glenn Murcutt only designs buildings in his own country - partly because he believes that you should understand a culture, climate and land (among many other factors) - to create a building that has a symbiotic relationship with its place.
Yet he has shared his knowledge in universities across the world and currently holds professorships in Yale and Seattle and, since last week, the DIT Dublin School of Architecture at Bolton Street, in a three-year term sponsored by building materials group CRH.
In his inaugural lecture at the RDS last week Murcutt raced through projects - speaking faster and faster - so much to teach, so little time, yet in one-to-one conversation he discusses issues more slowly in a gentle Aussie accent. But the same passion is there.
While fame came to him - especially in the form of the Pritzker Prize relatively recently - you get the feeling that he wouldn't have minded if it hadn't, so long as he was happy that he was creating buildings with integrity and beauty. "I operated largely below the radar level until the last 10 years and then the radar picked me up and it gave people a bit of a jolt because it was an incredible surprise. I spent the whole of my life outside any realm of expectation or even any thought about it going the way it has gone."
The spotlight caught him as a result of his dedication, and exceptional talent as a designer. "It is all about how much you put into it and how you use such a gift that you may possibly have. You need to work hard and try to do things properly. It's about spending more time on things than you probably economically should do. Nobody is going to remember the effort but things come from what the deeds are and not what you talk about."
Not all of Murcutt's pupils are prepared to put the effort in, he says. "East coast students [in the US] don't like working that hard. They complain like mad. I refer to it as having a 'soft underbelly'. Those kids have been raised being told that everything that they do is beautiful and wonderful by the American parents who think their little darlings are specialist beauties. But kids are not always beautiful. I like kids who can tough it out, who have a bit of fibre. Those who push themselves and are able to do something beyond what is expected. The west coast students are terrific. In Seattle they are amazing: very much like your society and our society. They are prepared to get into it."
There was little pampering in the Murcutt household, and Murcutt puts his success down to his father, a builder. "We didn't get pocket money as a right when I was growing up. It came from achieving and doing something well. Asking a good question brought pocket money or going out and learning a piece of music on your own initiative or doing something for the family or community without having to be asked."
While Murcutt has always fought for good design, not least by having taken 13 court cases against local authorities who objected to his buildings (he won 12 of them), he realises that some architects give up the fight and produce what certain authorities and clients want, for an easy life.
"I have had so many talented students, who have even got the university medal, and that is the last you hear of them because they go into well-paid jobs in big organisations and safety. I'm very cautious when it comes to survival but on the other hand I will take huge risks. But they're all calculated risks.
"The risks in design come in doing things in a building that you know yourself is going to work but to everybody else is doubtful. It makes you doubt sometimes yourself which is a good thing but if you pursue it and it comes off you build up this confidence in that you know what can and what cannot work."
So good design comes from continuous learning, hard work and probably innate ability but is it possible to teach good design? "Well, I bring out what is there. All I can do is to try and get into the heads of the kids and what they're thinking. If I think it's way off I will use a very clear analogy as to why it's wrong and try and bring them back into something that will have integrity."
Students who Murcutt rates will often be passed work by him. Despite his global fame, he still works as a sole practitioner and, on larger jobs, will collaborate "equally" with other architects. "My wife Wendy Lewin is a wonderful architect so she has first choice of projects to work on.
"I find the very best architects that have been under my teaching at the universities and I've sent clients to them.
"Very good young architects have set up their practices and won architecture awards on the work I've sent them. That is great gratification for me."
Who knows, maybe Irish students may benefit in this way under Murcutt's tutelage. "My class at DIT is an extra curricular activity. These kids have to do their normal thesis work too.
"This is a lot of extra work and I promise all my students they'll be very happy to see me go because of the intensity of it but I hope they will have learnt something."
